Closed Doors
by shadowhuntingdauntlessdemigod
Summary: Tag to 12x13. Mary doesn't let the argument drop, leaving Dean to explain to his mother how he always has his brother's back, and why working with the Brits is obviously a bad idea. What Dean doesn't know is that Sam is listening to the entire thing.


**This is a tag to the end of 12x13 and beginning of 12x14, so some spoilers included. Basically just a continuation of their argument with a few brotherly moments thrown in. Hope you enjoy!**

 **I don't own Supernatural. A few t-shirts, yes, but not the show itself.**

* * *

The sight in front of him is one that Dean never imagined he'd see. In his perfect world, which was his own fault for thinking there could be a perfect world, the entire family was united against a singular source of evil. Now, his own mother is standing opposite her two sons, attempting to explain why working with the Brits has benefits.

"You made your choice," Dean says, his voice low and vaguely threatening because how dare she? "So there's the door." He points harshly up the stairs and to the giant metal door that leads out of their oh so perfect little world. Something snaps and Dean shakes his head, unable to talk about the issue anymore. He starts off down the hallway, which eventually leads to the kitchen. He hears some amount of murmuring coming from the other room and honestly finds himself not caring what it's about. The muttering lasts about four seconds before there are hurried footsteps and a "Dean!" shouted in a female voice down the hallway.

Dean turns into the kitchen, his back still to the door, as he attempts to collect himself before Mary comes in as well.

"At least try to see things from my perspective," she implores, not letting the topic drop, the reason unknown to Dean.

He scoffs slightly and shakes his head, not looking at her. "I've been trying, it won't work. It will never work," he annunciates, and turns towards her, "not with these people. Not ever."

"And you won't at least give them a chance? They're doing good work. They're saving people."

"And we don't?" is Dean's immediate response.

"We do good work too...but not on the same scale. We can't save everyone," Mary argues back.

Dean shakes his head again and leans against the cool metal counter. "What and they can? A bunch of accents and fancy toys in a country they don't know."

Mary crosses her arms over her chest and looks at Dean sternly. "They haven't had a human casualty in Britain in decades, Dean. Think of what that could do here."

"Exactly," Dean responds, pointing as if her statement were to float in the air. "Britain. Not the United States. Way bigger, way more different monsters. We've done just fine without them, and will continue to do so." At this point he's surprised he's still having to argue this.

"Wouldn't it be helpful to have some backup now and again?"

Dean has to admit she's right there, but for all the wrong reasons. "I've got nothing against backup, as long as it's being given by partners and people we trust. They want to take over and give orders. We'll do all the work and they'll take credit for it."

"You don't know that, Dean. You haven't hunted with them, I have. They work as a unit. Their tactics are good and trustworthy. Their-" she's about to make another point but Dean cuts her off.

"Trustworthy?" he asks, his eyes widening a bit as his voice deepens. "The same trustworthy intel that almost got Cas killed?" There's all manner of hurt and worry in his tone that he can't mask. "If they're so good at their job, they should know how to do some freaking research at least."

Mary's gaze is steady on his, just as stubborn and set in her ways as her oldest son. "Everyone makes mistakes-"

"No, forgetting to tip is a mistake. Intel on a prince of hell? Torturing Sam? Those aren't mistakes, Mary," he says angrily, making his way to the fridge to pull out a beer even though there are the ones she brought still in the map room.

"It's over and done, Dean. You can't tell me you've never gotten the wrong information."

It's almost common practice to get the wrong information every now and again, they're all human after all. The difference comes from who got the wrong intel and what effect it had on the people closest to Dean. If he makes the mistake and someone gets hurt, that's his cross to bear. But if someone else messes up, someone he doesn't trust in the first place, and it almost costs a family member, that's a bit more than just a mistake in his eyes. "This isn't just about the damn intel! They kidnapped, shot, and tortured my brother. Your son. You saw what they did to him, and now you're working with them!"

Mary shakes her head. "That was three crazy agents off the reservation, Dean. Davies took care of it already."

Dean half scoffs at the excuse. "Oh and you're just taking his word for it? Because you trust them so much? You trust the people that let those crazies into the field more than you trust your own family's judgement?"

He can see Mary processing it. Sure, Sam half took Dean's side in the most recent argument, but he was also fairly quiet. He's teetering in the middle, Dean already knows it, and he's afraid that making a decision will split up the family they're just trying to get back together. She opens her mouth to speak, but Dean holds up a hand to stop her.

"Yeah, Sam's been quiet, I get it, he doesn't about things like this." His voice drops down a tone as he cracks open the beer and takes a sip. Dean raises his gaze to look at her and says, with a bit more softness in his voice, "he's afraid of losing you again, even if that means not speaking about what those pompous jerks did to him."

"How do you-?" Because Sam hasn't mentioned what happened all those weeks ago, not once.

Dean simply shrugs in response. He doesn't even have to think about the answer. "He's my brother. Hell I've been raising him since I was four. I know how his mind works. And right now he's playing the middle and it's not gonna do anyone any good."

Mary shakes her head slowly. "It won't. But I won't stop working with them," she says quietly, but with determination. "The only reason you're not considering it is because of what they did to Sam and the bad intel?" Mary clarifies, just to make sure she understands it all. Dean isn't sure what there is to understand.

"Damn right," he replies gruffly, leaning back against the counter.

"All the good they've done, all the good they'll do, all the people they'll help, you'll block it all out just because of that?" she asks. Her tone isn't condescending per say, but it still hits Dean harder than he thought it would. It's the 'just' that gets to him.

"There's no 'just' when it comes to things like this," he amends.

Mary runs a hand through her hair, knowing that the argument is futile, but still pressing anyways. "So you'd give up the safety of other people…possibly the world, for this?"

It's at that point that Dean realizes just how much she doesn't know. She doesn't know about him selling his soul, dying, the demon blood, Lucifer, Purgatory, the angel business, the Mark…the Trials where they literally chose each other over the fate of the world…she has no idea. "I've done it before, I've got no problem doing it again if it means keeping us all a bit safer." He's not sure if he includes Mary in that so inclusive 'us'.

"Again?" The word is almost like a whisper, a secret admittance that she doesn't know what her sons have been through.

Dean simply nods in response. "Yeah, again. Because sure, being a hunter is my job and I save people, and I'm pretty decent at it, but I've only got one real job." He points outside the kitchen with his free hand. "He's been my job since he was born. I've failed in my job before, but I will not let those know-it-all British jerks get their hands on him again."

Mary visibly swallows. Her job was always being a mother, protecting her boys, and now… "And if he decides to work with them?"

 _Like hell he will_. Is Dean's immediate internal response. But there is a version of this story where he can see Sam agreeing. And that road only leads to pain, and he knows it. It's a bad decision, but he knows there's a chance that Sam may agree besides what the Brits did to him. "Then I'll follow."

Mary purses her lips and nods. "So that's all it takes?"

"Someone has to watch his back, no matter where it is." That someone is normally him, and the times when it wasn't him, Dean wishes it had been.

They stand in silence like that, looking uncertainly at each other in the kitchen of the bunker built by the Brits' counterparts all those years ago. "I'm sorry, Dean, but I'm not leaving them."

 _I'm leaving you_ is the halfway true second part of that sentence. Dean almost says he's sorry too, the words are stuck in his throat along with the anger and the pain, but he only nods in resignation and looks at the floor. He can't stop her from working with them, he can only help deal with the inevitable fallout.

Mary waits another few moments before stepping out of the kitchen, her heavy boots echoing on the cold floor of the bunker. Dean half waits for some words on her or Sam's part, but the only noise is the door opening and closing a minute later. And then they're back to the way they've always been. Dean finishes his beer, tosses it maybe a bit too hard in the trash, and walks out the other kitchen door, bound for the shooting range.

* * *

What Dean doesn't know, however, is that Sam heard every single word. He had stepped quietly behind Mary the second he heard her and Dean start, or continue, to argue. He stopped right outside the kitchen door, out of sight but not out of earshot. Was he really playing the middle? Sam took a moment to run through it in his head, looking at both Dean and Mary's arguments. The Brits could help, but Dean had a point about their crappy intel and their…less than perfect history with them.

Then Dean brings up Sam being his kid, and practically sacrificing the entire world for him, and Sam's mind stops in its tracks. He's not even sure why he's so surprised, it's not like he didn't know all of this before. Maybe…he's just surprised that Dean is having to explain it to their _mom_ of all people, the one person that should understand. Then again, she doesn't know everything they've done for each other, and…some of the things they regrettably haven't.

Dean reiterates how he'll always have his brother's back, and even under the circumstances, Sam smiles. There's a quiet apology on Mary's part, but not one on Dean's, which he isn't sure if he expected or not.

Mary comes out the door he's standing next to, not at all surprised to find him standing there. She gives him a sad smile and squeezes him on the shoulder a bit, possibly for reassurance, possibly to connect her back to her sons, and leaves without saying a word. Sam doesn't flinch this time as he hears the heavy door shut. Instead, he's more concerned with the heavy boots he hears heading down to the shooting range. The ball's in Sam's court, and Dean's worried about which side he will choose.

Sam knows better than to follow Dean down to the range. His brother needs time to clear his head and cool off a bit. While he wouldn't object to Sam being down there, he's interrupted enough times to know that Dean secretly needs his space too.

So instead, he lets the ghost of the argument hang around in the kitchen and heads into his room. Sure enough, a few minutes later, muffled pangs start echoing from the shooting range. One after another, like clockwork. Thirteen pops, a few seconds apart, about twenty seconds of silence to reload, and then the pops continue.

Even angry and confused, Dean's shots are still the same each time, just repeating one after another.

They continue like that for ten minutes or so, Sam won't say anything about wasting ammo because they've got plenty stockpiled, and the shots gradually slow down. Sam takes that as his queue to stop listening. He looks around his room, wondering if he should meet Dean when he comes back up from the range, but immediately decides against it. He's flipping through Netflix when the cursor lands on the new season of _Game of Thrones_ that just got put up. Sam smiles to himself, knowing exactly what he'll do.

The shots are few and far apart now, broken up by the sound of popping kernels that Sam's put in the microwave. He even pulls out a small batch of licorice they keep in the kitchen. He brings back a bowl of popcorn and the candy to his room, leaving the door open as he does. It's an open invitation to be together, and the popcorn assures that it's not to talk about the fight.

Sam gets the show set up and is ready with the remote in his lap. Sure enough, a minute or so later there are footsteps in the bunker headed back to the dorm rooms. Dean has to pass Sam's in order to get to his own, and Sam takes the opportunity to toss a piece of popcorn at his brother as he passes. It's an innocent gesture, the sole purpose being to bring Dean out of his own head and back into the world.

He misses, but come on, it was fifteen feet at least, and Dean just looks at the piece of popcorn on the floor. "Seriously?" he asks in a gruff, but not angry tone. He bends down to pick up the piece, ever the clean freak, and flicks it back at Sam, landing it on the bed this time.

Dean's done a good job of covering up the redness in his eyes, but years of being Dean's kid has taught Sam to recognize his attempts at covering up.

"Game of Thrones got updated," Sam says nonchalantly, looking between the television and his brother.

"Hm," Dean says in an amused huff, and shoots Sam a small smirk before continuing down the hallway.

Sam's heart falls just a bit, as much as he'll let it. He shouldn't have expected Dean to want to hang out after a fight about what both of them believe, even when Sam himself wasn't involved. Especially when he wasn't involved. He lets out a small sigh and presses play on the first episode, letting the familiar theme song ease his worries a bit.

He's halfway through the theme when Dean walks back in, obviously annoyed. "If you got rid of my licorice, I swear…" he trails off, vaguely threatening.

A large smile breaks out on Sam's face as he tosses the package on the other side of him to Dean, who catches it easily. There isn't a grin on his face, but there's still a smile, and Sam will take the win. "Scooch, sasquatch," Dean says jokingly, unwrapping the candy and coming to stretch out on the bed next to Sam.

Sam obliges, moving to the right side and letting Dean in the left with the popcorn between them. Dean doesn't say 'thank you' and Sam doesn't say 'you're welcome'. They don't talk about the argument.

Sam will never understand why Dean likes licorice. Dean will never understand why Sam likes peanut butter and banana sandwiches. But they put aside their food differences and watch their show together, as a family.

Because if there's one thing they both understand, it's that Dean will always have Sam's back to the best of his ability, come literal hell or high water.


End file.
